accidental video -> text; sunday morning

[expunger]

[The video clicks on softly, with little static or feedback normally associated with angels. It's broadcasting from a rooftop, pointing off-kilter slightly to take in the panorama of Adstringéndum's horizon in the early light of dawn. The sky is striped and bright, the sun only just peeking over the distant horizon to paint the city and Wastes with

Comments

[Offline]

[abrotherlikeyou]

I think it's too early in the morning for philosophy.

[He has landed just behind her, and that's where he stays.]

[Offline]

[expunger]

[She's been avoiding him. It takes her too long - seconds, countable in slow measure - to fly anywhere, and leaves her winded. He would notice.]

We do not sleep.

[Offline]

[abrotherlikeyou]

You were asking the humans.

[He steps forward and sits next to her. Lucifer doesn't sit very often.]

Which, by the way, is a headscratcher. Since when do you ask them how much life is enough? They can't even respect the lives of goldfish.

[Offline]

[expunger]

Theirs is the grasp of mortality, Lucifer. [Tiredly, like teaching a lesson to a child for the thousandth time. Sounding more exhausted than usual.] The knowledge of good and evil.

We are unchanging by nature while they were made to adapt, small and petty though they generally are. By God's design they have knowledge denied to us.

[She is lost and needs a source of guidance, but knows her brothers can give her nothing. They know as much as she does about the realities of accepting mortality.]

Offline;

[painhumbles]

[Yep. Here's Gabriel. Having watched that entire PCD display and now genuinely curious.]

You left your phone on.

[But not enough to not be a brat about her quiet log time.]

Offline;

[expunger]

I am aware.

[Without looking at him. The sunrise is genuinely beautiful; how has she gone so many thousands of years without noticing it? Surely she does not need to be young to appreciate the beauty of Creation.

Even if this sunrise is not at home, and this sun not created by their Father is dawning light over an alien world. Raphael will take it anyway, since she won't see His Creation again.]

Offline;

[checkoutpandora]

[Gabriel watches it for himself, allowing himself just a second of quiet contemplation, of actually appreciation of the sunrise. In a world as broken as theirs, you don't really pay attention to the sunrises- you're too busy counting the number of sunsets.] You also seem to have TB of the Grace, but that's neither here or there, huh?

[expunger]

No. [Her reply comes softly. She still won't look at him.]

Tuberculosis can be cured.

[bloodseal_soul]

... you look sick.

[Soft, concerned.]

[expunger]

That has been true in every post I've made for the past four months.

[Which, honestly, it has. She's looked like ass warmed over for a long time, but generally only in a creepy, paper-skin-and-face-rot Luciferian sense. The sliver of her face that the video showed for one second was too brief and vague to reveal much.]

[bloodseal_soul]

What's wrong?

8( al

[expunger]

Nothing.

[Some small part of that isn't a lie. If she does come back to life, she will come back different. The possibility has not escaped her that she might return with her Grace intact, whole, and freed of this crushing agony that has started to worm under her skin and turn her into a monster.]

[Video]

[showchoirstar]

[Rachel had woken up to a brilliantly wonderful beginning to her birthday, but this seems... wrong.

And so, she's frowning, with strings of silver tinsel around her shoulders, still in her pajamas.]

Raphael?

[text]

[expunger]

[Alas, text. She doesn't want people to get a good, full view of her face.]

Rachel.

[Video]

[showchoirstar]

[Well, she's not using text, so there.]

...I would want to live long enough to know I've lived a good life.

[She frowns to herself slightly.]

Why did you ask?

[text]

[expunger]

[Well... well, fine. She can do that.]

Step out of Solve.

[Text--Private]

[wingsandwill]

[Yeah, he saw that light, and the coughing itself. It takes him a while to decide to comment, but eventually does so.]

Why are you asking?

[Text--Private]

[expunger]

Because I am going to die. Humans own that area of expertise.

[Welp. It was his stupid Grace she "died" to retrieve, after all. She can tell him easily because she knows he doesn't care a whit, making the conversation much easier than Gabriel or Castiel... or anybody else who cares.]

[Text--Private]

[wingsandwill]

[...Oh. He is vaguely tempted to say that he has more experience than most humans, but he doesn't.]

What is causing it?

[Text--Private]

[expunger]

The same curse that temporarily killed me when Tom cast it.

Apparently it is their world's answer to the Colt. Nothing can survive it.